


Impulse

by Witete



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bad Brain Thoughts is what i do best, Depression, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, i guess ironhusbands if thats what you like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 18:58:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14315055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Witete/pseuds/Witete
Summary: A relapse later and he's slurring along to a non-iambic pentameter.





	Impulse

**Author's Note:**

> Infinity War is in less than two weeks. This is how I cope.

He just wants to sleep. 

 

He’s not used to the need, the drive to just cease work, shut down, and awake again.

 

Well, he is, at least the first two steps, but the fear of what plays behind the eyelids, sifting through memories, terrors, and futures keeps him lucid, awake, and in agony.

 

He wants to cease work. He wants to shut down. He can’t decide if he wants to wake up again.

 

But he wasn’t about to do...that. Not now; not when he has the   _ responsibility _ \-  _ yeah,  _ he thinks,  _ immense amounts of guilt can certainly open a third eye-  _ to take care of this mess that he has caught himself in.

 

The Accords, Ross, Rhodey, Rogers (he  _ knew _ ; he fucking  _ knew _ ), the protege that grabbed his heart in a kind, gentle grasp that just wouldn’t fucking release -not like he wants him to...but he  _ needs  _ him to...but didn’t...couldn’t-

 

God, he’s a mess.

 

He had been good: hadn’t touched liquid amber in any poisonous way in a year, year and six months maybe.

But it wasn’t until he found himself at the bottom of a very expensive, very concentrated, imported-from-fucking- _ Russia _ bottle when he realizes the mistake he made.

 

He decides very quickly that he does not care. 

 

Mistake after mistake after mistake over and over and over until they blur together into one, colossal fuck-up that he decides that is just him.

 

He tries to drown it out, but he can’t. 

 

_ You can drink yourself away, but can you really? _

 

He just wants to...sleep. Yeah. Sleep.

 

He finds himself sat on the floor in his lab, lights low and F.R.I.D.A.Y. silent, staring at his Mark XLVII, unfinished silver plating glaring against its glass case. The previous model, XLVI, stands beside it.

 

The poor thing, nearly tattered beyond repair -and certainly beyond anything he wants to repair-, the massive gash in the chestplate coiling up internal metallic plating like the unfurling petals of some sort of gorey, sharp-edged steel flower. The gaping hole in the center of the chestplate is still peppered with protective -should’ve worked,  _ should’ve worked- _ glass shards. Beyond that, though, the casing is dark and vacant and it reminds him of Obie.

 

He may not have a hole in his chest now -yeah, because having a sternum made of stainless steel and a heartbeat that would make iambic pentameter cringe is much better-, but it feels like it. It sits right between his pectorals, swirling within the litany of scars that stretch into the muscle of his chest, opening his ribcage, revealing the black and oily guilt and agony that writhes inside. It attaches to his spine - _ watch your back,  _ it says, sounding like betrayal and red hair- and slithers through his head and neck.

 

His head pulses and his eyesight shifts from dark to light, white to black, speckles of static that sounds like screaming -Howard’s panicked breaths and Maria’s strangled gasps- across his mind. It’s suffocating and strangling and feels like helicopter rotors and reactor hums.

 

_ Why does it feel vicarious _ , his neck and throat say, the taste of alcohol like acid in his mouth.  _ Was this what it felt like for her to die? _

 

He thinks that no, it can’t be, because a metal palm must be more powerful than Russian ingenuity and blood, but it’s the last feeling he has of his mother and he doesn’t want to let that go, even though it hurts.

 

_ Maybe this is what the shield feels like,  _ he thinks, his grip whitening on the bottle held in his fist. 

 

But, no, he thinks again. Because if it was the shield, he would be dead.

 

When metal hits metal, his head slamming against the concrete, and his helmet is peeled off into shattered bits of glass, wiring, and alloy, he looks Rogers dead in the face, blood boiling in the back of his throat. Rogers’ gaze doesn’t shift, his blue eyes dark with intent as he raises the shield above his head. 

 

For a split moment, the pair staring eye to eye, tears to blood and back again, he feels murder in the cold winter air and he doesn’t move. The air graces his exposed neck and the thought of  _ please be quick, I can’t do this anymore  _ is anything but fleeting. The shield starts to come down and the armor raises its fists -he knows that he’s protecting himself out of sheer instinct and he can’t tell if he’s thankful or not- protecting his neck and face from the oncoming onslaught. He imagines the shield coming down onto his neck, slitting open his windpipe and crushing his larynx, blood pooling out from his jugular onto the cold concrete beneath his pounding head. He hopes that the disk severs his spine before he regrets not protecting his neck enough.

 

The shield buries itself in his chest instead, the metal splintering and pulling and peeling beneath the disk. The arc reactor blows and fizzles out, the blue light vanishing from the chamber in the chestplate and the low humming quieting into the howl of the Siberian wind and the whistling of his own, gasping, desperate breaths. He hears his chest, his real flesh and blood and bone and  _ broken  _ chest, crack under the pressure of Rogers’ blow and the weight of the dying suit. He can’t feel it and he doesn’t know if he’s grateful or not. 

 

His left arm blows up in a flurry of pins and needles and he thinks of Rhodey, his spine shattering between the cold ground and the even colder suit and he wonders if that’s how it felt before the nerves shorted out and death struck his lower half. 

 

He is numb, but he still feels through the alcohol and oil and pain regret betrayal guilt sadness guilt guilt  _ guilt. _

 

He wants to di-sleep. Sleep. He wants to sleep.

 

He wonders how long the bottle will take to knock him out cold on the floor of his lab, nobody’s eyes watching other than F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s and, hey, at least he’s lucid enough to feel sick at the idea of her watching him self-destruct. He doesn’t want his baby girl to see him in this state -yet here he was- and he certainly doesn’t want a paralyzed, ‘I’m-tired-of your-self-destructive-shit-Tony’ Rhodey coming downstairs and finding him out cold, comatose, or worse -better? It seemed subjective- on the floor of his basement surrounded by incriminating bottles.

 

Or maybe he does want Rhodey to find him because that gives Tony a reason to stop and surrender and feel safe for fucking  _ once  _ in his life, but  _ no,  _ his hissing, seething brain says.  _ Because that is selfish. _

And God forbid he falls into that trap again. The line between not caring and caring too much is but a gossamer thread and he’s having a hard time figuring out where to put his foot next.

 

_ Getting help is selfish?  _ He once asked himself in a state similar, but not identical a few years ago. And somehow, someway he convinced himself that answer was  _ yes  _ followed by flurries of _ you can’t burden them you can’t waste their time who are they anyway you love them but do they love you they pity you pity pity pity. _

 

So  _ boo-fucking-hoo, _ he responds, teeth sharp at his cheek and tongue and blood tart against his gums.

 

He wants to...die.

 

But he...he _ can’t _ because he’s the most selfless selfish person he can think of. Because behind the gnashing teeth of his burning psyche and corrosive tongues of burning acids he’s still  _ here _ . And he knows he’s not leaving. Because  _ that’s  _ selfish. That’s what moved his arms to protect his vulnerable neck; that’s what moves his tongue to protect his vulnerable self; because he cares about them. His mind can hem and haw all it fucking wants about  _ pity pity pity  _ because he cares about them and would hate to see them worse off.

 

Rhodey needs those leg supports. Peter needs suit maintenance. Pepper needs a fiance. 

 

...and Rogers is waiting for a call.

 

All of it stems from him and it hurts but it also doesn’t. They need him and he needs them.

 

Maybe they care, maybe they don’t -they do they do  _ they do -  _ but fuck if he doesn’t go down fighting.

 

So yeah, maybe he wants the big Out, but he can’t. 

 

Won’t.

 

Because there’s still so much more to do. And he loves them. And they’ve been through so much.

 

A broken, shuddering sigh escapes his chest and he releases the bottle he was holding with an iron fist. 

 

Someone says his name, quiet and laced with concern. 

 

He turns his head, neck still screaming from phantom pains and alternate realities, and looks over his shoulder. Rhodey is there, faded M.I.T. t-shirt and sweatpants, confined to a wheelchair, hovering at the entrance of the elevator that F.R.I.D.A.Y. is so kindly leaving open.

 

He thinks that maybe Rhodey has been there a while or that he’s just reading the awful emotions that are filtering through the genius’ face because his curiously fearful expression fails him and crumbles into something sadder.

He rolls over slowly and maybe says something else, but the decidedly not iambic pentameter heart is pounding in his head and he lets out an accidental whine of pain.

 

Then Rhodey is there, slid to the floor  _ -fuck, Rhodes, don’t hurt yourself, please don’t-   _ one arm around his self-destructive friend and the other in the center of his chest, over the writhing mass of guilt and steel and scars and shrapnel and Yinsen.

 

Ever protective of his chest, he almost swats Rhodey’s hand away, but the kneading is calming and soothing and safe and that’s all he wants. He lays his head on the colonel’s shoulder. Maybe he cries or maybe they both do because it hurts it really  _ really  _ does; between shattered spines and relapses and PTSD and hating the world, hating the cards they were dealt; looming dark clouds of sleeplessness and crushed bones and acidic minds.

 

But...it’s okay. It is because Rhodey is here, and Pepper and Peter are not far. He’s not _there_ -hot dry deserts or freezing cold bunkers- because he’s here -home, safe.

 

He misses J.A.R.V.I.S. and he misses his mom and he misses and misses and misses, but he’s  _ here _ and not  _ there _ and they’re  _ here _ and aren’t going away.

 

And neither is he.

 

The hole in his chest quiets and the chatter in his brain ceases and when he takes another deep breath filling his mangled lungs, it doesn’t hurt and the world that hangs on his shoulders feels just a little bit lighter.

**Author's Note:**

> Send in requests for a 5+1 fic! I really want to do one, but I can't think of a good subject tbh.  
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
